Alienware Area-51 m17x Video

Alienware Area-51 m17x Video Transcript

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>> Hi. I'm Dan Ackerman, senior editor at CNET.com. And we are here taking a look at the Alienware m17x. This is basically the flagship of Alienware's laptop line. It's a big, huge, gigantic 17-inch gaming monster, pretty thick as well. Fully tricked out like this model is, you're going to spend about six grand on one these guys. You can actually get cheaper configurations starting at about 2,000 dollars, but that involves cutting so many corners you might as well take that same money and spend it on something like one of Gateways FX gaming laptops. You'd get a lot more bang for your buck at that level. But fully tricked out, you can't do too much better than this. This guy has not one, but two Invidia G force 9800 cards. It's got an Intel Core 2 extreme CPU, and of course plenty of RAM. It can handle pretty much any PC game that you throw at it. Now Alienware laptops, and I guess their desktops, too, used to be pretty outrageous looking. You'd spend a lot of money. You'd end up with something that looked like it belonged in a stoner's dorm room. The new Alienware design is a little more low-key and laid back. It's very flat, looks like a big, black slab, kind of impressive looking. It's got a series of touch control buttons up here, including a volume slider. The touchpad is actually totally flush with the rest of the system. The only way you can tell it's a touchpad is because it's got little light-up light pipe around it like that. And of course, the keyboard is backlit as well. And if you don't like the red we have here, you can actually open up the Alienware light editor and choose different lighting colors. So let's take a quick look at how that works. You open up the Alienware light editor program called FX lighting. You highlight the keyboard. Hit green. Hit apply, and now your keyboard is green. I can take the Alienware name right below the screen, and if I wanted to make that purple, I can click on purple. And now I guess it's kind of, sort of purple. Of course, besides all the lighting trickery, the m17x is a fantastic gaming system. It could handle pretty much anything we threw at it, even at super-high resolutions, although you do have to be prepared to pay a price for it. I'm Dan Ackerman, and that's the Alienware m17x. ^M00:02:05 [ Music ]